Fired up the game Thursday & there was no sound but after reseating the sound board connector, the sound came back. Last night, I couldn't get the sound working. I imagine I'll have to repin the connector or at least reflow the solder. Is there something else I should check first? If I need to repin, what connectors should I get?
Also, how does the SB function? There are two square buttons. One gives a high pitched beep & the other gives a lower pitched beep. The LED blinks reasonably slow. Is this normal or should it be steady?

The trim pot had crossed my mind. Where would I check the output?
The game hasn't had the ground mods done. I'll try to do that tomorrow & go from there. Replacing the trim pot's above my skill level, so if it comes to that, I'll call somebody.
What are the two buttons for?
Looking at the manual, which board is the 'power supply board'? There's the power supply, A2, & the aux. power supply, A5, but neither have a trim pot. What trim pot should I order?

Thanks! I'll get into it more tomorrow (hockey & beer tonight). Should be good reading.
The service manual has the voltages for the different pins, but I didn't see a mention of the trim pot in the manual. Thanks for the link.
Love learning stuff here.

I looked at John's Jukes ground mod directions, but they're a little confusing to me, so I'll follow the pinwiki guide. It's connecting each board to the 5v power supply heatsink (after sanding of any coating) & then running a wire to the ground strap (on Raven, mounted to the side of the cabinet), correct?
Is 18ga wire enough, or should I use 16ga?

I attempted to do the ground mods last night using the pinwiki photos. The attachment point for the soundboard seemed odd. Should I scrape the connection point? I didn't do the aux. power board as there wasn't a photo for it. Still have to do the mods at the transformer. It was getting late & don't think I have suitable ring connectors.
I checked the voltages on the power board (J2) & was getting 5.1v. I'll have to check the voltages on the SB connector (A6P1 according to the manual). I think I was getting 4.6v at pin 1 which should be 12v. The rest seemed off too. I'll check them tonight.
After powering on, I still get no sound. I've been having a problem with missing digits on the display, but the ground mods seemed to have fixed that, so hopefully I did okay. Perhaps it's a bad connection on the SB.
I'll try to get a new trimpot tomorrow.
The day before one sniper stopped popping up & it still doesn't, but that may be unrelated.
The pinout voltages in the Hollywood Heat topic are confusing to me. Just to be sure, should they be:
Pin 1 +12vDC
Pin 3 -12vDC (+12vAC?)
Pin 4 +12vAC
Pin 5 +5vDC
Pin 13 -12vDC
Pin 14 +12vDC
Pin 15 +5vDC

I'm pretty sure pin 10 in unused.

Okay, I checked the voltages & I think they're wonky.

Pin 1 3.5
Pin 2 3.5
3 0.4
4 Spare
5 3.5
6 & 7 Spare
8 1.2
9 3.4
10 Spare
11 28.2
12 -0.1
13 16.4
14 36.2
15 4.7
16 Spare
17 -0.1
18 -0.1
19 Spare

Some of them, the higher voltages I think, may not be stable & were falling.
Note that I haven't done the transformer ground mod or replaced the trim pot. And the missing display digits reared it's ugly head again.

I'm worried that this is over my head & am thinking of getting someone in to take a look at it. Should I do the ground mods at the transformer first? When I did them on the boards, I ran the ground from the PS to the ground strap at the lower right of the head instead of to the cab. Is this sufficient?
If anyone know someone in the Niagara Region that does pinball repairs, let me know. Erak, I'll PM you.

Thanks guys. I'll take a look at that tonight.

Hi John.
It's not that the instructions are confusing, it's that I have no electronic background so I basically need someone to hold my hand & show me exactly what to do.
So far I've done the ground mods including at the transformer panel. I've bought a new trim pot, LM-338k regulator & a 50v 10,000uF cap. I'll get those installed & go from there.

How hard is it to replace the trimpot & LM338K? I've got a cheap soldering iron & a solder sucker, but the sucker's kind of a PITA. Should I get a soldering wick? Anything else I'd need? I've got some good solder that I got from Newark14.

Pinsider Erak came over on the weekend & took a look at it (thanks Erak! - much appreciated!). He replaced the 10,000uf cap, the LM338k regulator & the trimpot, but still no sound. Erak checked the bridge rectifiers & one of them tested bad. After some reading, it looks like I need three 35A 400v rectifiers. Is there anything special I need to get, or do I just ask for 35A 400v lug connection rectifiers?

I replaced the bridge rectifiers & no change.
Erak suggested checking the voltages at the transformer itself.
With the fuses out I get F1 (sound PS - should be 12v) 13.7v; F2 (PS 11v) 12.7v; F3 (displays 32v) 38.3v; F4 (solenoids 27v) 30.3v; F5 (controlled lamps 8v) 6.4v; F6 (playfield illumination 6.3v) 4.8v. I checked the other sides of the fuse holders & all were dead except F6 which had a reading of 2.8v. Seems odd. That & F5 & F6 being low.
I put the fuses back & checked & the voltages are F1 - 7.6v; F2 - 6.8v; F3 - 22.1v; F4 - 15.7v; F5 - 5.1v; F6 - 3.6v. What would drop the voltages so much? Could the transformer itself be pooched?

Bump.
Anyone have an idea why F5 & F6 measure low even with the fuses out? Could it be bad solder joints on the fuse block? Also, I have no idea why the voltages would drop when the fuses are installed or what's causing the 2.8v on the other side of F6. The only thing I can think of is the remote battery holder.

I haven't touched the connectors. I'm not sure what you mean by 'rep in the wires'.
In attract mode, the insert lights will chase down towards the flippers & then the flashers go off. Most of the time the GI lights will go out during this, but it didn't do it last night, or the night before, I think (they're not supposed to). The GI was also going out when the start button was pressed & 'Raven' comes up on the display. That & the sound are the only problems. No missing digits on the display anymore after doing the ground mods.

Yeah, I was thinking about the connectors. If there was someone near me with a sys80b, I'd ask if I could plug my sound board in to check if that's working first. Quite possible I fried something with my inexperience.
Erak sent me a link to a maaca thread https://www.maaca.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=2044&sid=fbd677bce6aa7c7ac15a965ce55b9c89&start=25 about a no sound problem & it had instructions on troubleshooting it, but I don't think the power supply board's getting the correct voltage. I think Erak measured 7.4v when it should have been 12v & now I'm measuring low on F5 & F6. I'll recheck the PS voltage & C1 on the MPU & see what I get.
I'm learning though & that's a good thing. I had no idea how to read a schematic before & now I can at least find what voltages go where.

Yep.

Thanks, I'll look into it.
Edit: I'm still having a problem with the GI lighting going out when the inserts chase down in attract mode or when the start button is pressed. I'm pretty sure that there's a voltage problem. I'm going to look into that more this week. A nieghbour suggested measuring the taps of the transformer to make sure it's putting out the correct voltages.

Soooo.... I finally got around to doing some trouble shooting. The voltages at the transformer don't seem correct, but the PS is putting out 5.17v & the game plays fine, so I think you're correct here.
How do the pins come out of the connector? The wires go into it at a 90d angle. I suppose it's easier to get a new connector & crimps, snip the wires, fasten the crimps & insert into the connector. Is this what most people do?
I'll contact Ed at GPE about what I need to get. Is there anything else I should get just in case? It's quite possible that I fried something on the sound board.

I had read somewhere to set it to 5.2v as the MPU can pull the voltage down. I'll adjust it.
The LED blinks about once a second & it beeps when pressing the reset & the test buttons. I'll check the reset line tonight. What should I be reading? I'm not good as schematics & the manual doesn't really tell me anything.

Could be the audio amp. I didn't know that that's the auxiliary power supply. If I turn the pot by the coin door up, the hum gets louder. Would this happen if the amp's not working?
I think crlush is right about it being the connector though. When I reseated it the first time, the audio came back on.

I was playing last night & I noticed that the helicopter starts up at times when it shouldn't. I think it's only supposed to start when you hit the spinner. I paid attention to it last night & it started when the ball went down the left inlane, hit a standup target, bounced around the pop bumpers... It didn't do it every time though. It's been doing this a while now but I didn't give it any thought. I'm not sure whether it started before the sound went out, after I did the ground mods, etc. I'll start a new thread because I don't know if this & the no sound problem are related.
I also had a bulb, a Comet LED strip, changing brightness, but that's probably a bad connection on the socket.

Now that I'm learning more of this stuff, I'm finally getting back into this.
I checked the voltages at the aux. power supply & the sound board. The soundboard had 4.95v on pins 15 & 16 (should be 5v), -12.4v on pin 13 & +12.3v on pin 14 so that's good. The aux. power supply was fine except pin 9 (+24v unregulated) was 36.4v & when I checked continuity (is that what it's called? I was on the ohm setting) from pin 8 to where I ran the grounds on the power supply, I got 1.1 ohms. Shouldn't this be 0 ohms?
I'm going to order some molex crimps & a crimper from G-P-E & redo at least the connector for the sound board. In the meantime I'm going to recheck my ground mods & run them to the ground strap bolt in the bottom right of the cabinet instead of the PS.
If it still doesn't work, I'm going to assume that either the sound board or the aux. power supply has a problem. There's a repair place reasonably close by so I'll call them & see if they can check the boards out if need be.

I got some connector housings from GPE & on the weekend repinned the SB connector, A6P1. It didn't make a difference, but later it played the gameplay music, albeit constantly, even during attract mode. Switching it off & on got rid of it.
I repinned the aux. sound board connector & when I turned it on I got a loud hum & no displays. I checked the wiring & I have it correct, so I unplugged the SB connector & the game plays again. I checked the wiring of that & it's correct.
The loud hum leads me to believe that there's a bad ground somewhere. I did the ground mods but I'm going to redo the SB ground directly to the ground strap at the bottom right of the head. I'll also continue repinning. Could there be something else wrong? Perhaps with the SB? I guess I should re-check the voltages.
Another thing that happens is that the GI lights go out when certain things happen, such as when it's counting bonus or when 'Raven' is coming up at the start of the game. It stops doing this after a while though. Could this be related? What would cause this?

I was playing last night when the display went out & everything except the lights went dead. It occurred to me that the MPU probably isn't getting enough voltage (I'm new at this). I'm going to redo my ground mods so they go to the ground lug at the bottom right, reflow the solder of the PS (A2) pins, check the voltages & adjust if necessary & repin the single sided connectors. Hopefully that should fix everything. I'm not going to do the double-sided connectors as they're IDC & I'm unsure that I'll be able to use the Molex crimps in them. I did get the crimps from GPE for them though.

Crap. Turns out I didn't buy a 5-pin connector housing for the MPU. It's got a couple wires that go to the 5v PS. Looks like I'm going to have to try fitting Molex crimps into IDC housings. I have some 0.156" Bifurcated crimps. Hopefully those fit better than the standard ones.

Good to know. Thanks Steve.

Eh, I give up. I repinned connectors until I ran out of crimps, I redid the ground mods, reflowed the solder on A2J1 & A2J2 & set the voltage at A1J1 to 5.05v but nothing changed. Actually, something did - after repinning A1J6 the pop-up snipers stopped registering being hit.
I found that the driver board had burnt & been fixed https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sys-80b-burnt-driver-board#post-3117564 . I can't do board work so I'll have to have it looked at.
Time to call the big guns I guess.

I've been repining connectors when I get motivated, but so far no luck.
I was talking to my neighbour & asked about following the wire colour from one board to the next & he said that you can use the connector callout instead. Say I want to know where A6J1 goes (or comes from), I'd look at the schematics of the other boards for XXJ1. Good to know. I wasn't looking forward to following wire colours if it came to that.

I've been repining connectors but still no change. I'm beginning to think I'm on a snipe hunt. I have to recheck the voltages though. I'm getting 5v at A1J1 & at A6P1 but was getting 3.66v at A3J4. The snipers not resetting was due to a crimp that wasn't seated fully.
One thing that's happening is that the GI goes out when in attract mode & the inserts chase down & the flashers go off, when it's spelling Raven after pressing start & when it counts your bonus. It gets better though as it warms up. After a while, it'll only go out when the flashers go off in attract, then it won't happen at all, then it'll come back.
This leads me to believe there's a bad board, maybe bad caps? There's a place relatively close that advertises on Kijiji ad nauseam about repairing pinballs so I'll see if they can check the boards. I spoke to them once before & it was apparent that he didn't want to work on Gottliebs though.
Are there any questions I should ask when I call, such as if they have a system 80b that they can swap the boards into as a quick check of which one has the problem?

I'm going to have to start re-crimping the double-sided connectors on my Raven. I bought some bifurcated crimps from GPE, but I didn't get enough. Can the regular 08-52-0072 crimps be used?
I'm really, really not looking forward to having to pull the old crimps out of the housings. Are the double-sided connectors a huge pain? The single-sided weren't too bad.

Saw TerryB's article ( http://www.pinrepair.com/connect/ ) on Molex connectors & crimping & he recommended Molex trifurcated crimps, PN 08-52-0113. I wish I had seen that article sooner. He recommended those instead of the 08-52-0072. I'm assuming these will work in the double-sided housings. Digikey.ca has them 100 for $16.28 or 250 for $36.02.
Oh & Googling what bifurcated meant helped too.

I just ordered some trifurcated crimps from Digikey so they should be here tomorrow. I'll get some wire & try the harness between the MPU & driver board.
What size wire do I need? 18ga? I've had trouble getting the old IDC crimps out of single-sided connectors, having to pry them out instead of pulling. Are the double-sided harder?

The guide mentions to buy lots of the trifurcons, but Ken Layton pointed out to me that the trifurcon crimps are for games that use pin connections, like Ballys, not edge connectors like Gottlieb. Darn. I also found an old thread that mentions that too. The bifurcated crimps are no longer available, so the standard crimps, 08-52-0072, are what to use. Something to keep in mind for beginners like me.
On a side note, if there's anyone local who needs the trifurcons, let me know

So, now that the game's playing correctly, it's time to get back to the sound.
After it got fixed, there'd be no sound for a couple hours & then the gameplay music would play constantly. Then odd sounds would start, like the explosion sound would start & then become constant. Turning it off & then on or pressing the reset on the soundboard would make it stop, but it would eventually return. No sounds would play during switch hits or when starting the game or when it counted bonus.
Last night the music started, but it would also play the machine gun sound when it spells Raven at the start of the game & when counting bonus. Surprisingly, it would also play sounds when switches were hit. Maybe not all switches & maybe not the correct sounds; I'll have to watch a gameplay video to refresh my memory. It definitely played sounds that didn't belong. Plus, the gameplay music kept playing beneath the sounds. Switching it off & on & pressing the SB reset wouldn't stop it this time though.
The tech was going to try to find a soundboard to try in it, but now I'm not sure it's the SB. He's a half hour to 45 minutes away & I don't want to get him here if it's not. I was new to electronic troubleshooting & repair back when this started & I messed with the A6P1 connector with the game on. Would this corrupt the sound proms? I'm leaning this way. I honestly don't think it's a connector, but it may be the driver board too.

Thanks dothedoo, I had forgotten about that (I was trying to get it working). I'll do the tests. I was thinking I needed a logic probe (& learn how to use it). This shouldn't be too hard.
It was suggested on another forum to look at the MPU/driver board harness. The pins look good, but I'll check the continuity of them.
Edit: Just noticed I started this thread 11 months ago. Hard to believe it's been that long.

Got around to checking voltages on A5, the aux. power supply.
Pin 5 = -6.53v DC (-12v DC)
Pin 7 = 7.1v AC (12v AC)
Pin 10 = 12.75v DC (12v DC)
I also checked pin 6, the 12v AC input & got 7.3v AC. So this means the problem's not on A5 but on the transformer panel, correct?
Looking at the schematics, it comes from fuse F1. There's nothing else in the path until A12J6/A12P6. I guess it would be a good idea to re-flow the solder on the pins & re-pin the connector. What do I use for that? I have a bunch of Molex trifurcons & bifurcated crimps. Do the old crimps come out the same way as on the single-sided connectors?
Edit: Should I disconnect A12J6 & check continuity to A5P1?

I found out that I had to read between pins 6 & 7, not 6 to ground & 7 to ground. Reading them this way I get 13.1v.
Since the reading between pins 6 & 7 seem okay, I guess CR1 thru CR4 are good. I was going to check the cap, resistor & Zener diode on the circuit so I read up on how to check them. The cap needs an ESR meter & the resistor needs to be taken out of circuit, but I don't have the equipment or experience to do this. Should I just have them replaced? I can't imagine it would be too expensive.
I've attached a picture of the circuit schematic.
Oh, could someone please explain what the different components in this circuit do? I'm guessing the cap provides a constant voltage & the resistor drops the -14.5v to -12v, but I don't know what the Zener diode does, or how the cap or diode work with them going to ground.

A5 Circuit (resized).jpg

I unplugged the sound board connector, A6P1, & checked pin 5 of the aux. power supply to ground & got -6.56v.
I plugged A6P1 back in & on the aux. power supply, I checked resistor R7 to ground. The banded side read 13.7v & the other -6.57v. Checking the ohms of R7, I got 0.1.
Checking in diode mode, VR1 read -421 in one direction & 1 in the other. CR1 read 944 & 412; CR2 921 & 444; CR3 974 & 510; CR4 read 908 & 422.
Does this mean R7 is bad?
When I first it on, there's no sound. After playing a few games, it'll start to play the game music non-stop & sometimes make game sounds. I don't know if this means anything.

I had C7 & VR1 replaced on the aux power supply. I now get -12.26v DC on A6P1 pin 13 & 12.8v DC on pin 14, -12.25vDC on pin 5 of A5P1 & testing R7, I get -15.9v DC on one end & -12.26v DC on the other, so the voltages are good.
Unfortunately, there's still no sound, although it may come back after warm up. I'll have to wait.
I guess I'll start going through the procedure to test the ICs. Sounds like fun!

I finally got around to "Testing the Data Pathway".
I jumped to ground pins 2, 4, 6, & 8 of Z13 on the driver board & got nothing. The pins on A3J5 look good, but that's the one single-sided connector I haven't re-pinned because I mistakenly ordered a 7-pin connector housing instead of an 8 pin. I'll cut it off & re-pin it.
Pin 8 of that connector is for solenoid 8 & pin 2 is L2. I can't find another reference in the schematics to sol. 8 & the only reference to L2 is coming from the bottom cabinet to a motor relay. Could someone tell me what those are for? It may help me trace the problem.
I'll check Z13 when I get home. Since the game works fine other than no sound, I have a feeling it's Z13 that's my problem.
Edit: I found that solenoid 8 is the knocker. I'll set it to match instead of extra ball to see if the knocker works.

I went through steps 2, 3, 5 & 6 and got absolutely nothing.
I disconnected everything from the diode board & checked Z31 in diode mode. All the pins except no. 4 were in the vicinity of 0.4 to 0.7. Pin 4 measured .015. Does this mean the chip's bad? Would this stop all the sounds?

Sorry, I'm learning as I go. How do you check the sound input pins on the SB? Most of what I read refers to sys80, not sys80b.
Edit: I used to get the game music playing constantly, but it would take about 3 games before it started. It hasn't made a sound in a couple of weeks.

I was reading on how to check the sound/speech board on a system 80. Is checking a sys80b the same procedure, grounding pins 1 thru 8?
Edit: I'll check the SB, but I really don't think it's the problem. I was getting constant gameplay music & game sounds up until a couple weeks ago. It would take until about the third game though, almost as if it had to warm up.

I went through steps 2, 3, 5 & 6 but skipped step 4.
I'm not 100% sure that the sound board isn't at fault, but it did play all the sounds before, just not at the correct time. For instance, it would play the explosion sound without any breaks, while the game music would play non-stop, even in attract mode. For the longest time it made no sound at all, then the sound came back, now it's gone again.
I'll recheck the voltages at the connector & then check the board. in my newbie-ness, I did mistakenly pull the connector with the machine running, so there's a good possibility that I corrupted something.

I grounded pins 1, 2, 3, 5, & 8 and got no sounds. Pins 4, 6 & 7 don't have any wires in them.
I'm not sure what to do now. Get another SB? Find someone to burn the sound ROMs?

While in attract mode it was resetting, where the display would flash & some relay would click, so I checked the 5v at A1J1. I know I set it to 5v, but it was 4.8v, so I set it to 4.96v. When I did this, it made the explosion sound so I went through the sound checks.

It made one sound when I grounded pin 5 in connector A6J1 & another sound when I grounded pin 2 on chip Z13 on the driver board. None of the other tests did anything. The sounds occurred when I took the lead off the pins.

Is this of any significance? I was going to take the driver board in & have Z13 socketed & replaced & if that didn't work, call the tech & see if he can find his sound board to try. Does this narrow it down any?

Wow, has it been that long? This just wasn't a priority for me. At the end of March, my brother got flesh-eating disease in his arm & nearly died, then while he was in the hospital, he got MRSA & bedsores. They sent him home with what everybody deems substandard care. His bed sores got infected, community care didn't notice it for days, even though it stank, & when he was readmitted to the hospital, each had progressed to the next stage. He had to have surgery & again nearly died.
He's doing fine now, so I'm going to get back into the sound problem.
In the meantime, I've been doing a lot of reading. I'm tired of blindly shot-gunning it, although I think all that's left is Z13 on the driver board, so I'm going to get a logic probe https://www.amazon.ca/Elenco-Electronics-LP-560-Logic-Probe/dp/B000Z9HAP4 ,but it may be a week or two.

acebathound has a good tutorial for them at techdose & there's also terryb 's thread which has a lot of good questions & answers. I've tried to follow the circuit paths in the schematics & can probably figure out what to check, plus there's the ICs I had socketed & replaced.
I'll report back when I get the probe & take some measurements. I'll need to ask what should be hi/lo/pulsed at the very least. It may be a week or two before I get the probe though.

Pinsider erak brought his friend's SB over on Saturday & it's definitely my SB. Bought the board & now it's working!
I guess what happened was I re-pinned the connector backwards, sent 12v somewhere & fried the board. I thought it was working as every now & then the gameplay music would play. I then proceeded to chase my tail.
Learned a lot along the way & would do it differently now.
Thanks for everybody's help!